Interdimensional Games Inc.

Consortium: The Tower Early Access ALPHA 1.5 is live. Lots of bug fixes and general gameplay and content improvements and polish. Estimated amount of gameplay for Act 1 is 15-20 hours viewforum.php?f=157

[Update] The “iDGi-1 ending tunnels” now have content! Find an iDGi-1 tunnel (there are 13 of them to be found in the current build…) and walk to the end of them to experience a taste of things to come. This also fixes a major issue where the game would appear to “hang in blackness” at the end of iDGi-1 tunnels.
[Update] The “TTCore” level has received a major art pass. A ton of new art and lighting improvements to be found throughout the environment.
[Update] Still in the experimental stage: we’ve implemented a pickup system (temporarily assigned to the 'B' key by default). Pick up any physics ready body or a prop in the world and carry it around with you! Once kinks have been worked out, this will be integrated into the context sensitive “use” button.

UPDATES

[Update] FOV slider. Accessible via the front-end, this allows you to set your Field of View from 70 to 120. 90 remains the default.
[Update] New cheats! Toggle console command “InfiniteAmmo” (UnlimitedAmmo, TIA, TUA) to give the KAR, Shotgun, and Strommon infinite ammo. Also “GiveItemEMs” (Gives 50 Engineering Materials).
[Update] Alignment for all primary "good guy" characters now change when XO-1 occurs
[Update] Slightly lowered maximum fall damage possible with fully powered shock absorbers.
[Update] Per feedback, dramatically increased the "waffle" times for when the player is out of sight of the AI. Result is the agitation/tension will increase dramatically slower for players generally staying out of sight of the AI. If you announce your intentions to talk and then stay out of sight, it will take a full hour for a squad tension meter to rise one point.
[Update] The player is now a bit more maneuverable in the water! The minimum swim speed has been increased from 0 to .2. If you want to back up or slightly adjust your position, that's now far easier.
[Update] Per feedback, we’ve restored a previously removed additional way into the “212121” area where The Voice encounter happens.
[Update] Can now scan the strangely inactive turrets in the TTCore.
[Update] The Frank McFranky encounter now ALWAYS happens when entering the final Upper WaterHub room.
[Update] Fixed automap so that it doesn't give away the secret door/wall in TTCore.
[Update] Major optimization pass performed on interior Hotel floors. Big performance gains.
[Update] Various art and lighting improvements to Hotel Lobby.
[Update] Enemy status indicators now conform to new HUD style.
[Update] All physics enabled recyclables now make simple sounds when they make physical contact with something. If a player drops a physics recyclable, it will make sounds as well.
[Update] A series of level design changes were made to the WaterHub to avoid geometric conflict with the bottom of the Lobby level.
[Update] Lobby performance improvements. Still more to come on this front (the Lobby is an insane level…). Also, known issue: you may experience “flickering on/off” of parts of the Lobby - if this occurs for you, kindly consider sending us screenshots of precisely where it happens?
[Update] Updated some of the lighting in TopExt to help navigation.
[Update] Red robots now appear quicker in the S.O.S scene, if the player is XO-1.
[Update] Red robots now always spawn in the S.O.S scene if the player is XO-1, even if the player walks away.
[Update] The secondary light of the flashlight has been buffed to 10% power instead of 5% power.
[Update] Adjusted some of the window glass and snow storm effects in the Hotel Lower rooms.
[Update] Doubled projectile movement for KAR, Strommon, and Shotgun rounds.
[Update] Modified standard talk anywhere in TopExt and the Hotel, so an NPC will no longer be able to talk to you if they haven't noticed you. They will still be alerted to your presence via sound, though.
[Update] Overhaul of the system for talking down a squad actively in combat. Players now have a chance to talk down all squads from a combat state.
[Update] Yellow transponder removed from Lobby mercs - transponder is no longer required for elevator going back up to the roof from the Lobby.
[Update] Mercs inside the hotel now have a little more to say when you talk with them.
[Update] General lighting improvements in several areas of the world
[Update] “Find Odin” mission now turns off its indicator when the player enters the Hotel Lobby.
[Update] Removed requirement for the Rooftop squad to be dealt with to get the S.O.S mission notification.
[Update] The Superjump tutorial is now a Primary Tutorial, not a secondary tutorial, ensuring that it will always trigger for new players.
[Update] There are now several more Flashlight tutorial trigger zones. It should be pretty difficult now to miss one of them, especially when leaving TopExt.

FIXES

[Fix] Some changes to how “talk anywhere” lines work - though we are having difficulty replicating some of the reported issues with this. Please reach out to us if you still encounter issues with talking to the combatants/”bad-guys”.
[Fix] Fixed multiple vents in HotelTower3 that had holes open to the void. Thx to @Harlock discord user for the heads up and screenshot!
[Fix] Various fixes to the Icer scene.
[Fix] Corrected a scripting error where sometimes a very casual soldier would spawn for the icer scene after everyone had been eliminated in TopExt.
[Fix] Fixed a bug in the Hotel Talk Anywhere Scripting where the player would have to say a line twice to get an NPC to properly respond.
[Fix] Incorrect robot voice removed from elon convo
[Fix] Logic flaw in convo with Ellen/Franky fixed
[Fix] Broken/missing Odin's henchman line fixed
[Fix] Lowered the clamped move speed for elevators and made some logic changes to how they work. It should now be significantly harder for players to jump and fly out of elevators while they are moving.
[Fix] Fixes to healing and repairing tutorials.
[Fix] Fixed a ton of “invisible walls” in the Lobby. Should be all gone now...
[Fix] Fixes to completing the Elon gear mission
[Fix] Fixed a bug where if the player pulled the an Assault Blaster from a chest, they wouldn't get the dialogue about it.
[Fix] Dead bodies in the TTCore level will no longer start out as zombies before falling.
[Fix] Squad leaders should no longer spawn mysteriously injured after loading a saved game.
[Fix] Fixed some phantom collision in TopExt.
[Fix] Fixed turtled turrets that could be seen poking through ceilings - those turrets should no longer turtle. Please let us know if you find turrets poking through ceilings. (screenshot of location would be ace).
[Fix] Fixed a bug where PrimeCitizenPointLights were displayed incorrectly. They would render differently depending on how you looked at them, and whether you looked away from them or not.
[Fix] Fixed some misleading lights in TopExt with no clear source.
[Fix] Career record now properly updates kills.
[Fix] Fixed solar panel power switch. Added a wire to make it absolutely clear what it changes.
[Fix] All public opinion calls are now clamped to 0-100. Should prevent being able to get an erroneous negative number.
[Fix] Fixed bug where accessing the Icer for the Voice would rapidly swap between the context 'SABOTAGING' and 'HACKING'.
[Fix] Fixed a bug where the player could ledge-grab onto the map inside an elevator.
[Fix] Fixed a bug where surrogates didn't really seem interested in fighting the player during the X-01 version of the Icer scene.
[Fix] Fixed some strange aesthetic spaces assigned to Hotel Tower 3 entrances.
[Fix] Fixed a problem with Nanite Fragments, where recyclable versions would spawn at 0,0,0, resulting in no fragment showing up where it’s supposed to be.
[Fix] Definitive fix for that one extremely aggravating transition door in-between the Hotel Lower rooms and Water Hub B.
[Fix] Fixed dialogue problems with Franky in the WaterHub.
[Fix] Corrected lore inaccuracy in the Text Briefing. Changed to dec 21st.
[Fix] Fixed a bug where Elen Gibbons could walk through the Icer
[Fix] Geometric fixes in the really busy tunnels of Water Hub B, near the Nanite Fragment.
[Fix] Fixed some collision on a few pipe props.
[Fix] Fixed a bug where display stands would spawn a fully visible newscaster at the stand.
[Fix] Fixed bug where in some scenarios the binding for shutting of the TT Core electricity wouldn't be called, so the power couldn't be shut off correctly

Hi, I seem to be experiencing a bug in the hotel area. Once I go through the downstairs door to the area where R9 says "Oh look, more nanocrystals" and then if I attempt to go through the lower door, the game crashes. This doesn't seem to happen with the lift, I think.

Hi, I seem to be experiencing a bug in the hotel area. Once I go through the downstairs door to the area where R9 says "Oh look, more nanocrystals" and then if I attempt to go through the lower door, the game crashes. This doesn't seem to happen with the lift, I think.

Do you have a screenshot of the problematic area? I could try to debug what your problem is from there.

Here's some screenshots of the area. It usually produces an Unreal Engine crash report, but this time it just crashed to a black screen. I'll post the crash report if I get it back.
For more context, it's down the stairs from the hotel lobby with the 'Japanese' soldiers, in that area where you can see 21212121 but can't reach it, there's an unpowered lift and a doorway that level streams the part in the screenshots, but that area only leads to another level streaming doorway.

For an added bonus, first time I tried to replicate the bug, I fell through the map! Did manage to land on the unpowered lift, though... And not pictured, I cleared the tower roof of mooks, but the SOS quest marker seems to be buried about half a metre under the snow.
EDIT: Blimey, attachments show up big! I'll use Imgur in future.

Thanks Übermensch.
If you can get the report those are very useful. I'll investigate what's up with the doors, that's been a problem area for us for a little while- though I had thought it was pretty good now.

A lot more jitter on the main menu than I saw previously, especially, surges in the Game thread:

► Show Spoiler

"GAMEPAD FACE BUTTON BOTTOM" Wait, what? It should be noted that I do have an Xbox 360 controller, it wasn't on at all while Consortium: The Tower was running.

► Show Spoiler

Running an R9 390 8 GiB with the following settings and the framerate barely stays above 30 fps. Dunno if this matches your performance target or not. I can feel that it's on the edge of acceptable.

► Show Spoiler

Crouch/stand animations are clearly tied to framerate. When it is running like above, crouch/stand is notably slow. Edit: video showing this:https://youtu.be/qsqghjiHAs4

Guards keep giving their banter lines while being tased. The banter should stop the moment the taser starts.

I keep losing track of the cursor on the inventory screen. Blue on blue...isn't high contrast.

Critical: loading a save at this specific location stops jumping from working (bound to keypad number 3):https://youtu.be/PAJHoGm4C24
I'm smashing keypad 3 at the end of the video but it does nothing. Edit: Tried replicating the issue above at the save point just under the VXY Antenna and confirmed on load, no jump.

This video shows three things:
1) The graphic settings I had it set to.
2) The poor performance on the rooftop. Could be related to running 17.11.3, needs confirmation.
3) Hitting escape with graphic settings open doesn't close graphic settings.https://youtu.be/LuFfDcrTirI

Nov 24 Edit: Performance drop between 17.7 and 17.11.2 drivers. May be fixed in 17.11.3...

The massive framerate issues I saw in the video above are definitely caused by enabling vsync in the game. With vsync off, the framerate weirdly never exceeds 62 fps.

Last edited by FordGT90Concept on Fri Nov 24, 2017 1:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

There is no follow up when choosing the "Seeker" option where K15 orders R25 to look into it.

-"And that's the last of the repairs. Try to keep your gear maintained." dialog stops active conversation. Should be queued instead because it's not urgent.

-Automap conversation, I think I heard K15+R25 lines play twice (this conversation was the one interrupted by the above): K15+R25 about how automap works -> R9 about how there is no backup -> K15+R25 automap works repeat.

-Ellen/Doug guard:

First attempt, guard spawned. I loaded because Ghost failed when the guard saw me.

Second attempt, guard didn't spawn. Loaded again because I hit escape to report #1 during R9's line. Came back to the game and resumed...but R9 didn't get that memo. I waited for 30-60 seconds, decided the conversation wasn't going to proceed, and loaded again.

Third attempt, guard didn't spawn.

-"What Happened?"

Repeatable until the "I can't force you to talk" line is given.

Always gives "I do not appreciate being ignored" line regardless of having done the conversation.

Both of the above lines interrupted me redoing the conversation.

-"P.C.U. Alterations" is repeatable.

-Potential link between "What Happened?" and "P.C.U. Alterations": both dialogs trigger automatically when they are available and the Conversation Manager is opened. I believe this change is maybe what stopped them from clearing. "Somebody Spoke to me" may not be disappearing because the followup fails to trigger.

-Since 1.2 (I think it was), I have not seen the conversation option that leads to talking to the P32 follow up. I think it might be the convo that only people not importing a save get. If that's the case, they can never reach the P32 follow up because cannon is that P32 was not discovered. In other words, the P32 convo can't happen at all anymore.

-"Phase Field" seems like it is missing a line of dialog. R25 says something about the liquid and asks a rehetorical question about "guess what that is made of" then the follow up choices are "Great, thank you" or "how do I get to the parking garage?" I think R9 or K15 saying "you need that liquid and the only way to get it is in the parking garage" should be in between.

Environment

-If you recycle the element crate on the very top of tower 2 (next to save point) the stuff on top of it can fall through and become unreachable under the snow.

-The ladder attached to Tower 2, just above the red transponder/VXY door is difficult to get on because the functionality of the ladder seems to be to the right of the visual ladder. If you go to the right to get on it, you'll get on it.

-BUS: The Taser Level 1 upgrade doesn't feel meaningful. I had the first upgrade for the PCU's energy and it still took 11% of my energy to down a single guard with 4 basic shield nodes, 15% for 5 basic shield nodes.

Options

-Control Sensitivity returns to 1.0 on restarting the game...it either isn't being saved, isn't being loaded, or both. I set it to 1.3 for the record.

-The anti-aliasing slider appears it should be slightly bigger to make the text line up on the right.

Crash

-Could be bRegistered ActorComponent line 722 but may not be. All it said was "You do not have any debugging symbols required to display the callstack for this crash." I saved in the park by the door leading to the Hotel Rooms, loaded, and crashed.

I've noticed, that when you save the game and then load before the whole chat about "hey bishop, something's triggered your map, have a look" (or however that conv goes) and then when you open the map, you should see the park with 21212121 as mission waypoint in there.... except, when you save and load, it doesn't show the park marked as red. Sure, if you save and play straight from start to that moment without loading the save before the red marked area appears on the park, it works fine.

Not sure if the issue is only in the imported games or if it works in new game starts too.....

Anyway, should the devs need more info, i can provide a video material on the issue, but since it's easy to replicate (for me at least) it shouldn't be that hard for devs to replicate.

Edit: also noticed, that by reloading earlier save, it also breaks some chat triggers etc.

Basically what I'm trying to show is that there's always a perpetual conflict between what you have, what you need, and how you get it. I'm not entirely sure distinguishing these things is even necessary because one could theoretically make ammo from utility energy and recycling their stuff could give you back what it took to take them down.

Not in the table, but also important, is engineering points. It's a lot like ammo in that it's gamey. Why not just make upgrades require a lot of energy so when you get a surplus of it, you have something to spend it on rather than venting utility energy just so you can harvest more engineering points to upgrade stuff?

Alternatively, maybe engineering points should be divorced from utility energy entirely. For example, make every upgrade cost one engineering point and you can only get them from recycling the nanite fragments which don't give any utility energy. In this way, they would act like Praxis points in DXHR and DXMD. You have to ration what you get and you're rewarded hugely for exploring to find those fragments. For example, find a nanite fragment, you get 10 engineering system upgrades.

Basically what I'm trying to show is that there's always a perpetual conflict between what you have, what you need, and how you get it. I'm not entirely sure distinguishing these things is even necessary because one could theoretically make ammo from utility energy and recycling their stuff could give you back what it took to take them down.

Not in the table, but also important, is engineering points. It's a lot like ammo in that it's gamey. Why not just make upgrades require a lot of energy so when you get a surplus of it, you have something to spend it on rather than venting utility energy just so you can harvest more engineering points to upgrade stuff?

Agreed, it would be wise to allow creating ammunition with engineering system, + enhance the energy gain when recycling. you can't even use stealth node without running out of energy in like, half a min, if you haven't completely upgraded your energy stores in PCU

Being friendly with the local muscle in Hotel Rooms and there's a dialog where he says he scored 80%. Then in a response, you can mock him that he only scored 90%. I think 90% in ISS should be 80%:

► Show Spoiler

Can't get to the water tubes because the switch on the hatch isn't working in Hotel Rooms:

► Show Spoiler

Tried to get to treatment plant from TTCore but that's blocked too. Then I hit a major glitch with water climbing back up the ladder (40 second mark):https://youtu.be/vTU3tmS8_hs

Turret Musings

Why not make turrets motion sensitive? If you're walking (is there a walk/run toggle?), they're blissfully unaware of you. This would allow people that are ill-equipped to deal with them to circumvent them (e.g. talkers or those that ran out of ammo).

Why does R9 say "this looks interesting?" at the beginning of the Thames Water Plant? It makes me think I should find something to scan.

In the same area he says there, there's two turrets in this room (maybe more) that never attacked me. I most likely didn't do whatever makes them mad but if they're supposed to shoot at everything in the room, then something broke.

Just keep swimming... Everything here is new to me.

4:11 hit first butterfly valve into a transition area.

4:30 hit a second butterfly valve to leave transition area and it doesn't open up. Video cuts here but I tried to go back to the other buetterfly valve door to leave the way I came and it is bugged too (closed, no interaction text).

Badguy: something about the nanites are trying to kill us and Odin doesn't pay enough for this shit.

Seeker: I'll figure out the nanites, don't worry.

Badguy: "None: "

-Odin:

There's major problems at the beginning of this conversation. Odin, 1, & 2 are talking at the same time R25, R9, and K15 are via CMC. Not only can I really not follow any of it, the subtitles are a wreck while this is happening.

There's still some synthesized lines in there. Not sure if they should all be voiced or not.

Already referred to Chaosian: if aggitation meter goes to 9 and you tell them to stop shooting, Odin can no longer be talked to.

-Janitor achievements. I consider myself an achievement hunter and I don't think I would ever try to get the janitor achievements. Reasons:

Stuff falls out of accessible range or...freaks out because of PhysX settling objects (literally seen crates fly in Lobby).

The massive drain on energy from freefall suit + Tactical HUD + necessity to vent energy to make room for recycling more means you'll likely die trying on the Rooftop.

These kinds of achievements are never fun to do.

Suggestion/alternative: make them counter achievements instead where you need to recycle x number of items from each area across multiple playthroughs. Replaying is fun, searching every nook and cranny for a missing recyclable is not.